Report on the TCM Kongress in Rothenburg / 全日本鍼灸学会雑誌

I participated in the TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) Kongress hosted by the AGTCM(Arbeitsgemeinschaft fur klassische Akupunktur und traditionelle chinesische Medizin e.V.) that is held every year (this year: 5/30-6/5, 2011) in the same location, namely the small town of Rothenburg in Germany. While a substantial portion of the attendees are also physicians, this congress is mainly for non-physician practitioners using mainly acupuncture and Chinese herbal therapy. As the name already indicates, the focus here is more on the traditional aspects of oriental medicine that were dealt with during both theoretically and practically oriented presentations. The presentations, or rather study groups, were designed mostly for small groups of about 20-30 people and lasted 3hours each. This allowed extensive discussions that sometimes even took the entire presentation into an unforeseen direction. Although there were a number of presentations dealing with Japanese or Korean acupuncture, etc., naturally the majority discussed the Chinese style and characteristics of theory and practice. This practice seemed to rely, in most cases, mainly on theoretical considerations that could give the attendee the impression that examination of the unique characteristics of each patient (using palpation, etc.) so common in Japan is of rather secondary importance. <BR>Political aspects of alternative medicine and questions pertaining to standardization, etc. played an important role and I found it very interesting that one of the leading executives mentioned that although acupuncture may have developed in China, its future (further development) will probably lie in the West.

Report on the ICMART conference in Den Haag / 全日本鍼灸学会雑誌

I observed the ICMART (International Council of Medical Acupuncture and Related Techniques) World Congress on Medical Acupuncture held on May 13-15, 2011 in Den Haag (Netherlands). The ICMART is an association of western medical societies mainly interested in scientific evidence for acupuncture and other oriental medical techniques. Naturally, the number of presentations dealing with scientific evidence in relation to oriental medicine outnumbered those dealing with clinical aspects or traditional characteristics. The presented results showed, however, that while one set of evidence proves one thing, for example whether acupoints are really points or rather extended areas, another set proves the exact opposite and thus renders either the scientific questionable and the applied methods and/or the obtained results at least questionable. On the other hand, presentations dealing with traditional characteristics or techniques sometimes presented no evidence at all, or did not explain the rational behind the shown results. <BR>Extensive discussion about the integration of alternative medicine into mainstream medicine showed that this subject is much more related to political and financial questions than patient interests, but there seemed also to be some progress and hope for future development.